What are the drivers of the large Target2 (T2) balances that have emerged in the European Monetary Union since the start of the financial crisis in 2007? This paper examines the extent to which the evolution of national T2 balances can be statistically associated with cross-border financial...

This paper uses survey data for 29,000 households from 29 transition economies to explore how the use of banking services is related to household characteristics, bank ownership structure and the development of the financial infrastructure. At the household level we find that the holding of a...

Real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems effect final settlement of payments continuously and on an individual basis. This generates a trade-off between liquidity needs and settlement delay. Against the background of reconstruction discussions, the paper analyses whether more advanced...

This paper shows that transparency in banking can be harmful from a social planner’s point of view. According to our model, enhancing transparency above a certain level may lead to the inefficient liquidation of a bank. The reason lies in the nature of a standard deposit contract: its payoff...

In order to protect themselves against the potential losses in case of a participant’s default and to contain systemic risk, central counterparties (CCPs) need to maintain sufficient financial resources. Typically, these financial resources consist of margin requirements and contributions to a...

To date, various central banks have lacked detailed statistical evidence on developments in the unsecured interbank money market. Furfine (1999) introduced the idea of calculating unsecured overnight interbank lending by using data of a RTGS system. Based on data from the Swiss payment system...

This paper shows that transparency in banking can be harmful from a social planner's point of view. According to our model, enhancing transparency above a certain level may lead to the inefficient liquidation of a bank. The reason lies in the nature of a standard deposit contract: its payoff...

In order to protect themselves against the potential losses in case of a participant's default and to contain systemic risk, central counterparties (CCPs) need to maintain sufficient financial resources. Typically, these financial resources consist of margin requirements and contributions to a...

This paper introduces a methodology to estimate the re-use of collateral based on actual transaction data. With a comprehensive dataset from the Swiss franc repo market we are able to provide the first systematic empirical study on the re-use of collateral. We find that re-use was most popular...

In this paper, we analyze the price setting behavior of banks in the Swiss franc repo market by means of network topology concepts and measures. The sample ranges from October 1999 to December 2009. Hence, it covers a large part of the money market turmoil that started in August 2007. Among...